Month: June 2016

a. This year I learned to work better under a time limit and expand on my essay writing abilities. I also learned that people are fake.

b. My favorite creative thing that we did this year was the black out poems. It was interesting to see how we can pick out words that stand out to us and everyone finds something different.

c. I am most proud of my op-ed about feminism because I had never really spoken out about my opinion towards the movement because it is an unpopular opinion.

d. My biggest challenge this year was trying to get 80’s and above in APUSH. I procrastinated so much and slacked off because it seemed like too much work but in the end I made it through.

e. I wish someone would have told me at the begining of Junior year that this is not the year to slack off because it is so easy to fall behind and fail because AP is much harder than Pre-AP. Also, it is best to turn in every formative because every little extra point helps.

f. My biggest goal for next year is to keep the pattern going that I’ve been keeping every year to improve my rank. I also plan on having fun and making friends with those I didn’t talk to as much and keep the real friends I have around even after graduation.

I felt as though my parents and the rest of my family were getting bored of my predictable achievements. My parents and family no longer awarded or congratulated me as often. They didn’t ask me about school because they already knew I was doing fine. Being a rebellious teenager, feeling as though I couldn’t possibly satisfy anyone anymore, I started to slack off on my school work. They didn’t seem to care anyways.

My family has what we have because my parents taught my siblings and me one big thing: Race, stereotypes, reputations, none of them mattered. They found a way to overcome everything everyone else expected them to turn out to be. I was taught that it is possible to take all the good things from a struggle and create something admirable.

However, having everything I needed materialistically, I always resented my parents for the rules and restrictions they placed on me. At many times I realized that the strictness varied between my siblings and I. When I would point it out to my parents, they would always respond with, “Everyone is different”. Throughout my life I always looked at the negative that came out of not being able to be as “free” as my friends. I am shy and struggle to communicate and build relationships with others. I connected this with how my parents brought me up, telling myself that the reason I have public speaking anxiety and social awkwardness was because I never got to hang out with more people outside of school. I also never received everything I asked for or that my friends had. The response to my questioning of this was, “You aren’t like everyone else”.
As I got older, I realized that there was actually a logical reason behind my parents’ rules. Most of the people in my generation are spoiled and brought up to think that the world revolves around them, that it is okay to be disrespectful. I am now grateful that I was brought up to respect anyone, no matter their previous response. However, around the time I started high school, I started to realize something that shaped who I am as a student today.

After all the punishments for my lower grades and missing work, I came to realize that all my life I had been living to please everyone else. I hadn’t done one thing because I wanted to do it for my own good, but instead I did it to impress others. So I decided that these last years of high school I would make decisions for myself. I had to choose my career path, make a plan, and work as hard as possible to achieve what I wanted for myself. I am choosing to focus on what is best for my future and ignore the pressures of what everyone expects of me.